Calling sheep farmers

Producer demonstrations on-farm have found that flushing ewes with green feed for one week before and one week after joining delivers impressive reproduction benefits.

The demonstrations across NSW and Victoria have shown that short-term flushing ewes with green feed such as lucerne, rape, millet or green pasture increased lamb production.

Agriculture Victoria, with funding from MLA, has conducted on-farm demonstrations over the past four years on 28 producer sites in Victoria and NSW, joining crossbred or merino ewes between December and April.

Implementing a simple but effective grazing management strategy can provide a shortterm flushing effect, which can generate increased lamb production and income through reducing the proportion of dry ewes and increasing the rate of multiple births.

We are seeking interest from producers for the final year of this demonstration, which will compare the reproduction rates of ewes joined on traditional dry feed, versus ewes grazing lucerne for one week prior and one week post joining (short flush), versus ewes grazing lucerne throughout joining (long flush).

Participants who join ewes between December and April would need to make available 250-300 ewes for each of the above three treatments, which is 750-900 ewes in total.

The preference is for cross bred/composite ewes since considerable data has previously been gathered from merino flocks.

However, we may still consider merinos, depending on the number of sites obtained.

Agriculture Victoria will supply up to 900 electronic tags and will assist producers with data collection.

For more information or express an interest in being involved in the demonstrations please contact Gervaise Gaunt at Agriculture Victoria, Rutherglen, on (02) 6030 4571 or gervaise.gaunt@ ecodev.vic.gov.au.